INRTU cooperation with CoalExpo and Coal of Eastern Siberia
A team of INRTU faculty led by Rector Mikhail Korniakov visited the Voznesenskoe coal deposit (Cheremkhovsky district, Irkutsk coal basin, located in the south of Irkutsk region) at the invitation of CoalExpo and Coal of Eastern Siberia.
Denis Andreev, General Director of Eastern Siberia Coal LLC, explained that the field with a total area of 35 square kilometers had been under development since 2019. Experts estimate that the reserves of hard coal amount to 300 million tons.
"The unique feature of our deposit is that hard coal is not only a valuable energy raw material, but it can be sent for further processing to produce semi-coke and effective adsorbents. There are also some types of hard coal that can be used for the extraction of humic acids to produce humates. The research conducted by foreign specialists confirms that this coal has the potential to produce high-tech HVA products while diversifying the output stream into humates, sorbents, energy gas, and clean hydrogen fuel. As a result, import substitution in a number of economic sectors is carried out and "green technologies" are effectively used. This is why we approached INRTU in order to develop coal processing technologies together with the university specialists and get new useful products", Denis Andreev said.In 2023 the project of deep processing of coal from local deposits is a priority for the government of Irkutsk Region, and will be included in the Baikal Scientific and Educational Center. This also follows the commercial success of products in Russia and abroad.
According to Rector of INRTU Mikhail Korniakov, the university is interested in cooperation with CoalExpo and Coal of Eastern Siberia companies and in developing a new promising project to produce high-tech products by deep hard coal processing.
"We inspected the deposit sites, took samples to conduct research and select appropriate technologies for pilot production of semi-coke, sorbents and humates", said Rector Mikhail Korniakov.Nikolay Ivanov, Associate Professor of the Department of Radioelectronics and Telecommunication Systems, PhD in in physics and mathematics, assessed the project’s viability.
“Humates derived fr om coal are scientifically proven to increase crop yields by up to 76%. SMEs already have facilities producing humates in the Irkutsk Region. The emergence of a new venture further complements efforts towards the improvement of farmland in the Irkutsk region. Globally, the trend is transitioning fr om mineral fertilizers to humic ones, which is more environmentally friendly for plants and people", Nikolay Ivanov emphasized.Now the researchers of INRTU have the task to extract valuable raw materials fr om coal, humic acids, and to develop a technology to use them as a fertilizer. For this purpose it is planned to construct a pilot production unit at Voznesenskoe coal deposit. An additional research task is to study the raw materials in order to produce semi-coke sorbents for wastewater treatment, reductants for metallurgy and other petrochemical products. Consequently, the project of deep processing of hard coal can become an impetus for the development of the coal chemical industry in the region, to provide an additional raw material base and new jobs.
